ELECTION 2008

Hunter: I will build the fence

'Crime rate will drop in every state of the union upon completion'

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially.

Editor’s Note: This is the fourth in WND’s planned series of one-on-one interviews with each candidate for the office of president. Today U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter calls for construction of a border fence, suggesting that crime will drop across the country on its completion.

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter

The fastest way to cut crime in the U.S. is to build a border fence with Mexico, according to U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a candidate for the GOP nomination for president.

He was responding to a WND question about his perspective on the status of illegal aliens in U.S. and what should the nation should do.

“I get to answer the last part of that by talking about that I have committed that I will build the border fence that I wrote into law in six months. Last Oct. 26, the president signed my bill, the bill that I wrote that mandates 854 miles of San Diego-style border fence. That’s the fence I built in San Diego, Calif. Double layer fence with a Border Patrol road in between,” he said.

“The extension of that fence for 854 miles across the smuggling corridors of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and California will be a priority, and that, incidentally, will be one of my first initiatives as president,” said Hunter. “That, I think, will have a salutary effect on illegal immigration problem, as well as the crime problem in this country.

“When we built that border fence the crime rate in the city of San Diego dropped by 50 percent. I think the crime rate will drop in every state of the union upon completion of the border fence,” he said.

Hunter served in the 173rd Airborne and 75th Army Rangers in Vietnam and then attended what now is Thomas Jefferson School of Law. He first was elected to Congress in 1980, and after arriving in Washington took on the burden of working on military, border security and economic issues.

Then Sept. 11, 2001, happened. He saw that border security was indeed a national issue, and he responded “by leading efforts in Congress to seal a porous border susceptible to illegal aliens, drug trafficking and terrorism,” his website said. So far in San Diego County, 59 miles of border fence and infrastructure have been built.

He also believes it is important for the U.S Border Patrol to know what is being brought into the U.S., because of the threat of terrorism.

“What I think we’re going to have to have in this long war against terrorism is the ability to pre-empt the development of weapons of mass destruction, whether it’s the continuing progress that the Iranians are making with respect to refinement of weapons grade material that one day could result in a nuclear device or other nations moving toward the development of weapons that could give terrorists enormous leverage against Americans and their interests,” he told WND.

“That means we’re going to have to have a strong intelligence capability with an emphasis on human intelligence. We’re going to need a reactive capability manifested in our line forces and our special operations forces and also have the ability to make deep strikes and long distance strikes in very remote parts of the world. Those are some of the things I think the United States will have to acquire during this period that I call terrorists with technology.”

Another issue on his radar is the economy.

He told WND in his first 100 days he would be communicating with the government of communist China and informing them that they no longer would be allowed to “cheat” on trade.

He said the Asian nation has manipulated its own currency to attract manufacturing that used to generate millions of jobs in the U.S.

“At some point that’s going to affect the national security capability of this country as well as, obviously, the long-term economic health of the United States,” he said.

Hunter also said he supports a constitutional amendment limiting marriage to one man and one woman and would like to see a judiciary overturn Roe v. Wade.

“But if it doesn’t, I would push strongly for the legislative initiative that I’ve carried for years, which is the life- begins-at-conception bill, which would protect unborn children within the boundaries of Roe v. Wade,” he said.